458. Modesty and decency not primitive. At the earliest stage of the treatment of the body we find motives of utility and ornament mixed with superstition and vanity and quickly developing connections with magic, kin notions, and goblinism. Modesty and decency are very much later derivatives.
459. What parts of the body are tabooed? Cases may be adduced to prove that the taboo of concealment does not always attach to the parts of the body to which it attaches in our traditions. Hottentot women wear a head cloth of gay European stuff. They will not take this off. The Herero "think it a great cause of shame if a married woman removes this national head covering in the presence of strangers." They wear very little else. A woman who stood for her photograph "would more readily have uncovered all the rest of her body than her head."[1432] The Guanches thought it immodest for a woman to show her breasts or feet.[1433] Yakut women roll cord on the naked thigh in the presence of men who do not belong to the house, and allow themselves to be seen uncovered to the waist, but they are angry if a man stares at their naked feet. In some places the Yakuts attach great importance to the rule that young wives should not let their husband's male relatives see their hair or their feet.[1434] In mediæval Germany a respectable woman thought it a great disgrace if a man saw her naked feet.[1435] The Indian woman of those tribes of the northwestern coast of North America which wear the labret are as much embarrassed to be seen without it as a white woman would be if very incompletely dressed.[1436] The back and navel are sometimes under a special taboo of concealment, especially the navel, which is sacred, as above noticed, on account of its connection with birth. Peschel[1437] quotes private information that a woman in the Philippine Islands put a shirt on a boy in order to cover the navel and nothing more. In her view nothing more needed to be covered. Many peoples regard the navel as of erotic interest. Instances occur in the Arabian Nights. It is very improper for a Chinese woman who has compressed feet to show them. Thomson[1438] gives a picture which shows the feet of a woman, but it was very difficult, he says, to persuade the woman to pose in that way. Chinese people would consider the picture obscene. No European would find the slightest suggestion of that kind in it. An Arab woman, in Egypt, cares more to cover her face than any other part of her body, and she is more careful to cover the top or back of her head than her face.[1439] It appears that if any part of the body is put under a concealment taboo for any reason whatever, a consequence is that the opinion grows up that it never ought to be exposed. Then interest may attach to it more than to exposed parts, and erotic suggestion may be connected with it. The tradition in which we are educated is one which has a long history, and which has embraced the Aryan race. To us it seems "natural" and "true in itself." It includes some primitive and universal ideas of magic and goblinism which have been held far beyond the Aryan race. Shame and modesty are sentiments which are consequences produced in the minds of men and women by unbroken habits of fact, association, and suggestion in connection with dress and natural functions. It does not seem "decent" to break the habits, or, decency consists in conforming to the habits. However, the whole notion of decency is held within boundaries of habit. Orientals and Moslems now have such different habits from Occidentals that latrines are very differently constructed for them and for Occidentals.
460. Notion of decency lacking. There are cases of groups in which no notions of decency can be found. It is reported of the Kubus of Sumatra that they have acquired a sense of shame within very recent times. "Formerly they knew none and were the derision of the villagers into whose neighborhood they might come."[1440] Stevens never saw an Orang-hutan girl blush. Those girls have no feeling about their nakedness which could cause a blush.[1441] The Bakairi show no sense of shame as to any part of the body. They are innocent in respect to any reserve[1442] [i.e. no taboo of concealment exists amongst them]. A few cases are reported in which the awakening of shame has been observed. A bystander threw a cloth over a nearly naked man on the Chittagong hills. "He was seen to blush, for it was the first time in his life that he realized that he was committing a breach of decency in appearing unclothed."[1443] No doubt the more correct explanation is that he felt that in some way he was not approved by the English visitors. Semon tells how he posed a Papuan girl for her photograph, in the midst of a native crowd. She was "proud of the distinction and attention." Suddenly she was convulsed with shame and abandoned the pose, blushing and refusing.[1444] This explanation may not be correct. The feeling of one accustomed to be naked, if his attention is called to it, cannot be paralleled with that of one accustomed to be clothed, if he finds himself unclothed. The Nile negroes and the Masai manifest a "complete absence of any conventional ideas of decency." The men, at least, have no feeling of shame in connection with the pudenda. Complete nudity of males, where it occurs in Africa, seems almost always traceable to Hamitic influence.[1445]
461. Dress and decency. If the description of the Tyrrhenians given by Athenæus[1446] can be taken as real, they would have to be classed amongst the people who had no notions of decency. Curr says of the Australians[1447] that the tribes who wear clothing are more decent than those who are naked. The women of the former retire to bathe and the men respect their privacy. Evidently the dress makes the decency. If there was no dress, there would be no need to retire and no privacy. Wilson and Felkin[1448] say of the negroes that their "morals" are inversely as their dress. The Australians practice no indecent dances.[1449] The central Australians hold a man in contempt if he shows excessive amorousness.[1450] The natives of New Britain are naked, but modest and chaste. "Nudity rather checks than stimulates." The same is observed in English New Guinea. The men wear a bandage which does not conceal, but they attach to this all the importance which we attach to complete dress, and they speak of others who do not wear it as "naked wild men."[1451] In the Palau Islands women may punish summarily, even with death, a man who approaches their bathing place, but that place is, therefore, the safest for secret meetings.[1452] The Dyaks, except the hill tribes, conceal the body with care, but they do not observe a careful sex taboo.[1453] We are told of the Congo tribes, some of whom wear nothing, that there exists "a marked appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to private actions."[1454] Some of the women repelled the advances of men in Brunache's expedition.[1455] Nachtigal[1456] found the Somrai in Baghirmi modest and reserved. They proved "the well-known fact that decorum and chastity are independent of dress." On the Uganda railroad, near Lake Victoria, coal-black people are to be seen, of whom both sexes are entirely naked, except ornaments. They are "the most moral people in Uganda." The Nile negroes and Masai are naked. In the midst of them live the Baganda who wear much clothing. The women are covered from the waist to the ankles; the men from the neck to the ankles, except porters and men working in the fields. They provide decent latrines and have good sanitary usages as to the surroundings of their houses. They are very polite and courteous. This character and their dress are accounted for by their long subjection to tyranny. They are "profoundly immoral," have indecent dances, and are dying out on account of the "exhaustion of men and women by premature debauchery."[1457] The Kavirondo are naked, but are, "for negroes, a moral race, disliking real indecency and only giving way to lewd actions in their ceremonial dances, where indeed the intention is not immodest, as the pantomime is a kind of ritual."[1458]
462. Ornament and simplest dress. The notion of ornament is extremely vague. Things were attached to the body as amulets or trophies. Then the bodies which had nothing of this kind on them seemed bare and naked. Next objects were worn in order to comply with a type, without the character of amulets or trophies. These were ornaments. Hagen[1459] noticed, in his own experience, that ornament did away with the appearance of nakedness. The same effect of tattooing may be noticed, even in pictures. The oldest Chinese tradition asserts that dress was originally for ornament.[1460] "To the grass-land negroes of North Kamerun dress of any kind is only ornament or protection against severe weather." Their conversation on certain subjects is gross, perhaps because they are entirely unclothed.[1461] The Doko women wear a few strings of beads hanging from a girdle, and the girls of the Dime wear one, two, or three ivory cylinders hanging from the waist, but nothing more.[1462] The Xosa wear an ornamented girdle, but no apron.[1463] The unmarried women in the Temu districts of Togo wear strings of beads but no dress. The Moslem women make triangular aprons, worn by men over the suspensorium. The women meet suitors with grace and coquetry, in spite of the lack of clothing.[1464] The Mashukalumbe wear no dress, but the women wear little iron bells on a strap around the waist.[1465] The women of the Longos near Foweira wear anklets, waistbands, and bracelets of beads, but nothing else.[1466] The Herero have a horror of the nudity of adults.[1467] The Tasmanians wore no dress but decorated themselves with feathers, flowers, etc.[1468] Papuans on the Fly River fasten things through the nose and hang objects around the neck. Some wear a pubic shell, but most have not even that.[1469] On the island of New Britain both sexes are unclothed, although tapa cloth in very beautiful patterns is made on the island for other purposes.[1470] On the Banks Islands the men wear nothing, although they formerly made very beautiful dresses which were worn in the dance.[1471] Some of the Indians on the Shingu wear necklaces and ear pendants, but nothing else.[1472]
463. The evolution of dress. The above-mentioned girdle with objects hanging from it turned from an ornament into a garment when it became a kilt of fringed grass or leather. Arab women wore the girdle of thongs with lappets until it was superseded by a kilt of leather cut into a fringe. The primitive apron of the ancient Egyptians was continued underneath the later more elaborate dress. The ancient primitive dress got a sacred character and was worn by everybody, whatever else he wore. It was worn by girls, by women monthly, and also, "it is said, by worshipers at the Caaba." Then the ancient thongs and lappets got the character of amulets.[1473] In some Papuan tribes those who had learned all the religious secrets were allowed to wear the girdle as a sign of honor and dignity.[1474] Sometimes a skin or mat is worn hanging from the waist behind. It really is worn to be sat upon, upon occasion. Nothing else is worn.[1475] In this case, and in some of those mentioned above from Central Africa, a consciousness is sometimes manifested that there is something to conceal, and a posture or mode of walking is adopted which accomplishes the concealment. Amongst the Ja-luo (northeast corner of Lake Victoria) both sexes when unmarried go naked. A man, when he is a father, wears a cape of goatskin "inadequate for decency." Married women wear only a "tail of strings behind."[1476] The Nandi wear clothing "only for warmth or adornment, not for purposes of decency."[1477] The Acholi, in Uganda, think it beneath masculine dignity to wear anything.[1478] The Vanyoro men are generally clothed in skins. The women, until marriage, wear nothing; after marriage, bark cloth. The Bari men never wear anything. They think it womanish to do so. The unmarried women wear a pendant of fringe behind and five or six iron bars six inches long, the whole three and a half inches broad, in front. Married women wear a fringe in front and a leather apron behind.[1479]
464. Men dressed. Women not. Cases are very numerous in which men wear dress, while women do not.[1480] Such is the prevailing fact amongst the Indians of the Upper Amazon[1481] and in Central Africa.[1482] The women of the Apaporis (0° N., 70° W.) are said to wear nothing, but the men wear long aprons of fine bark string, broad bast girdles, and ornamental strings of teeth and seeds; also ornaments in the nose and lips, and some tribes below the lower lip.[1483] When women wear clothing and men do not the men think it womanish and beneath them to do so.[1484] When Livingston remonstrated with a negro for nakedness the latter "laughed with surprise at the thought of being at all indecent. He evidently considered himself above such weak superstition." All thought it a joke when told to wear something when Livingston's family should come.[1485]
465. Dress for other purposes than decency. Excessive modesty. The Dyaks wear only a loin cloth of a greater or less number of folds to keep the abdomen warm, "a precaution which all travelers in the tropics must imitate day and night with flannel for fear of dysentery."[1486] "The women [of the western side of Torres Straits] frequently wear a kind of full chemise. They do not wear it for the sake of decency, but from luxury and pride, for I often saw a woman take off her garment and content herself with a tuft of grass before and behind."[1487] Some Papuan women are mentioned, who wear a petticoat on festival occasions, but they leave the right side of it open to show the tattooing on the hip.[1488] Since cotton cloth has become cheap in the Horn of Africa the natives wear a great deal of it out of luxury and ostentation, and also because it is a capital at all times easily realizable.[1489] The Rodias, an outcast people on Ceylon, were once compelled by the Kandyan kings to leave the upper part of the body uncovered; both sexes. The English have tried to reverse the rule, which has become a fixed habit. The Rodia women now wear a neckerchief, the ends of which cover the breast, when they meet English people, but they have not yet acquired the feeling that it is unseemly to uncover the breast.[1490] Mantegazza met women on the Nilgherri hills who covered the breast on meeting him, but did not do so before men of their own race.[1491] It is the current idea on the Malabar coast that no respectable woman should cover the breast. Lately, those who have traveled and have learned that other people hold the contrary to be the proper rule feel some shame at the old custom.[1492] The Ainos are rated as displaced and outcast aborigines amongst the Japanese. An Aino woman refused to wash in order to be treated for a skin disease, because to wash was against Aino usage.[1493] An Aino girl in a mission school who had a curved spine and was lame refused to allow a European physician to examine her with a view to diagnosis and treatment.
466. Contrasted standards of decency. The Japanese do not consider nudity indecent. A Japanese woman pays no heed to the absence of clothing on workmen. European women in Japan are shocked at it, but themselves wear dinner and evening dress which greatly shock Orientals.[1494] Schallmeyer[1495] saw Japanese policemen note for punishment watermen who approached nearer to the wharf than the law allowed before covering the upper part of the body. The authorities are, therefore, trying to modify the usage. The Japanese regard daily hot baths as a necessity for everybody. Therefore bathing is unavoidable, and is put under the same conventionalization as that which surrounded latrines in the cities of Europe fifty years ago. Every one is expected to ignore what no one can help. Formerly, at least, the sexes were not separated and bathers might walk to and from the bath in a state of complete preparation for it.[1496] Before the "reformation" people of the better classes in Japan went to the theater not at all, or secretly. The plays were coarse and outspoken. Japanese education permitted "both sexes indifferently to speak of everything without the slightest periphrasis, or any respect for persons, even children." Hence situations were described and presented on the stage which we should consider too licentious for toleration, although there were no actresses on the stage. This was not due to laxity of morals, but to the fact that they had no taboos on reality. Yet "nothing appears more immoral to the Japanese than our drama." "They permit no intrigue [on the stage] by which the character of a married woman is compromised."[1497] The Europeans and Japanese, in contact with each other, find that it is not possible to infer each other's character from each other's folkways. Hearn says: "The ideas of this people are not our ideas; their sentiments are not our sentiments; their ethical life represents for us regions of thought and emotion yet unexplored, or perhaps long forgotten."[1498] The two cases in contrast, however, show the power of the folkways and their tremendous control. We know as to our own women that there is no conscious or unconscious purpose to stimulate sensuality. They wear what has been and is customary in their society. The Japanese get their customs in the same way and attribute to them the same authority. Neither has any reason to be amazed at or despise the other. Baelz quotes Mrs. Bishop, who after spending twenty years traveling in the East said, "I know now that one can be naked, yet behave like a lady." The above story of the crippled Aino girl gives credibility to Becke's story[1499] of a Polynesian woman, wife of a European, who died after child bearing rather than submit to treatment by a physician which would be attended by exposure of her person.
467. Standards of decency as to natural functions, etc. The natives of New Georgia (Solomon Islands) "have the same ideas of what is decent with regard to certain acts and exposures that we ourselves have." They build retiring places over the water, "but their language is quite unlicensed."[1500] In Micronesia reserve as to natural functions is lacking.[1501] Amongst central African negroes the king alone had a hut for retirement. "The heathen negroes are generally more observant of decorum in this respect than any Mohammedan."[1502] In Lhasa, Tibet, there are no latrines either public or private. The street is used.[1503] The Andamanese women are modest and very careful about decency of dress and conversation. For the unmarried there is complete license.[1504] When Middendorf asked a Tungus girl to sing, she sang a song which was so indecent that he could not translate it.[1505] Children of the Eskimo on the eastern coast of Greenland go naked in the house until they are sixteen years old. Then they put on the natit, a simple band around the loins, and that is the only thing worn in the house by adults. It is the custom of wearing fur next the skin which compels them to go naked in the house. They are very unwilling, under any circumstances, to lay aside the natit. Their songs and games are exceedingly licentious, and their myths are obscene. They do not keep these from the children. A great number live crowded in a little house, as an insurance against accidents or lack of food. This mode of life makes decency impossible and lowers the standard of propriety. Children are married at four or five years of age, but the relationship does not become established until a child is born. In summer, in tent life, two men exchange wives and some property. If one of them wants to keep the other's property, he must keep the wife, too.[1506] The Fuegians observe great decorum as to subjects of conversation.[1507] The Seminoles of Florida observe a high sex taboo. The women are virtuous and modest, and no half-breeds with whites exist. The mother of a half-breed would be put to death.[1508] The Tehuelches of Patagonia pay great attention to decency. They do not like to see children naked.[1509] The Indians of northern Nicaragua think that whites do not bathe enough. They always retire to running water, and are disgusted with whites for not taking that care.[1510]